Train police

Me, after my train ride with Union Pacific. I look so happy. I apparently don't know those officers are coming to get me.

A train is an optical illusion. It looks so slow sometimes, a giant, steel slug slowly creeping along the track, the repetetive clink of the cars rattling as the locomotive pushes forward.

But trains are not slow, and they are not gentle giants. They can weigh around 20,000 tons. A betting man would say a match-up between a train and a motor vehicle, even a big SUV, is no contest at all. And yet drivers repeatedly try to beat trains. When the two collide, you know who’s going to lose.

So what to do about this? Union Pacific Railroad tries a variety of tactics, but one of them involves what many drivers fear the most: tickets.

Union Pacific regularly teams up with local law enforcement agencies at specific railroad crossings to ticket motorists who ignore the crossings when a train is approaching, a Class C Misdemeanor punishable with a $167 fine. On Tuesday, UP worked with a team of 10 San Antonio Police Department traffic officers at two sites, on the West Side, between Malone and near Highway 90; and at Jones Maltsberger near the Quarry Market.

Here’s how it worked: two sergeants were in the train, monitoring traffic. They radioed to officers on the ground if they witnessed the violation.

In roughly three and a half hours, the officers stopped 68 drivers for 75 violations.

I was lucky enough to ride in the train with the sergeants and UP conductors. It’s pretty amazing to watch a caravan of vehicles zip around a crossing arm or past a flashing light, just so they can avoid waiting for a train to pass. And that happened. A lot.

Motorists can be ticketed for several violations, among them straddling the tracks, stopping within 15 feet of the tracks, disregarding the lights or driving aroundt the arms, said SAPD Sgt. Mike Brown.

The West Side track we were traveling on Tuesday is considered a double track, which means two trains can potentially pass each other at any time. There are roughly 25 miles of double track in San Antonio.

As we watched from our train, another train traveling south on the parallel track passed through an intersection a few seconds before our locomotive approaced it. Almost immediately after that train had gone through the crossing, a caravan of seven cars — and two pedestrians — immediately went through the intersection, though another train was on the way, and the lights were still flashing.

“That’s a perfect scenario of what we’re out here for,” Brown said.

Officers stopped and tickted all of the drivers. I believe the pedestrians remain at large.

If you’ll allow me a little interlude here, let me be clear that I am a very, very cautious person. I wear a seatbelt just to move my car a few feet; I lock my doors at all times; I mind the gap. I also don’t try to beat trains, because I’m scared of them. They are big. I am small. My car is small. Very simple.

Once in college, I was driving myself and a male friend somewhere, and we came to a railroad crossing. The arms had just gone down. My passenger told me to drive around them because, he said, I had plenty of time.

I’m a relatively upright citizen now (kinda), but in college, I was pathetically law-abiding. I also had a huge, monumental crush on this guy. I did not want him to think I was less cool than I had already proven myself to be. And the train did look a fair distance away. And yet, I refused to drive around the arms. He ribbed me about it, but I wouldn’t budge. I’m not trying to say I stood up for some big, important principle. I’m trying to say, I made myself look like a bigger dork in front of a guy I really, really liked just because I was that afraid of getting smashed to bits by a really, really big locomotive.

In hindsight, my choice seems like a very easy, obvious and logical one. But every day, people ignore the arms and the flashing lights, whether or not they are driving with the current object of their affections. And the results can be terribly tragic and very permanent.

Sgt. Brown knows that first hand. The first serious accident he ever worked was when a car collided with a train, dragging the vehicle about 200 feet. He hasn’t forgotten it since. And UP officials repeatedly say their operators are more than likely to be in some kind of accident during their careers. That’s a statistic they would like to change.

As SAPD Sgt. Greg Brooks put it, “There is no minor accident with a railroad train.”

To learn more about rail safety, visit the Union Pacific website for some helpful facts and figures or check out its Operation Lifesaver page.